


Autolatry

by odiko_ptino



Series: Featured Character: Athena [1]
Category: Greek and Roman Mythology
Genre: Amalthea (mentioned), Cronus (mentioned) - Freeform, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-20 20:02:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17029101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/odiko_ptino/pseuds/odiko_ptino
Summary: The mystery of Athena's existence, explained.





	Autolatry

_autolatry_ , n.  “self-worship”

Everyone knows the story of Athena’s birth, of course – or they think they do.  

A fully-grown Athena bursts out of Zeus’ skull, armored and bellowing a war cry.  The first thing she sees with her own eyes is her Uncle Poseidon and her teenaged brother Ares – still young but already so strong – holding her father down, as the Titan Prometheus stands with a hammer and chisel in his hands, having split the way for her escape from his forehead.  It’s rather a thrilling tale.  And particularly mysterious as it involves Zeus, and yet there’s no sex or violence.  In fact, that’s rather the point.

Speculation is rampant. Most seem to settle on a vague idea that Zeus ate one of his former lovers, and she gave birth inside of him, which is an odd story, but no odder than the truth.

But the truth is something that no-one knows, except Athena and Zeus.  And it has to stay that way forever.

———–

Her first memories are chaotic and confused, so she doesn’t care to revisit them often.  The negativity attached to the memories are less troubling to her – the fear, the loneliness.  It’s the murky chaos that irritates her.  

This is the beginning: when she was only the start of a thought that would become Athena.

————

As a young god, Zeus is alone and terrified.  Cronus has sent his creatures after him – towering giants, the size of mountains, made of primordial materials and glowing eyes and teeth and claws, only barely humanoid in form.  They come after Zeus, who is only a boy who misses his mother, and all he can do is run from them, and hide.  He is small and weak now, and cannot possibly hope to survive challenging the king of the Titans.

The monsters persist, and Zeus becomes more desperate.  He’s beginning to run out of hiding places.  The creatures’ claws can almost catch him now and on one occasion, they tear at him.  Zeus manages to escape, but not without wounds that leave him limping and weeping in pain and fear.  He is only a boy, a child, who cannot run to his mother in case Cronus finds him there. The nymphs who helped him before are long scattered by Cronus’ creatures – or worse, captured and punished.  Zeus is alone.  

He stumbles to a pool of water with the immediate intention of washing the blood off his hands and out of his hair and it is there that Athena rises from the mire of pain and confusion for the first time.  

He imagines a girl, his own age.  Her hair is red as the blood that stains the clear water.  Her eyes are grey, like his.  

Why a girl?  Why red hair?  Why any of the features he eventually attributed to her?  There is no real answer.  It’s just what came to mind.

The girl speaks to him, in a voice clear and calm.  The girl is not afraid, like him; and she speaks with confidence.

_You need to go to that goat you heard of – Amalthea._

“I’ve been looking for her,” Zeus says, in a hoarse whisper.

_Yes, in forests and alongside lakes.  You won’t find many goats in a forest.  They live in rocky, mountainous places, or places with no trees._

“If there are no trees, how can I hide?”

_You’ll need to kill an animal and wear its hide.  It’ll serve you long enough to reach her.  Take a sheep from one of the humans._

“Stealing?”

_First and foremost, you need to survive.  If it bothers you, you can make it up to them after you’re king._

This is the first time that Zeus has thought of a plan ahead, rather than simply thinking of running and hiding – and certainly the first time he’s taken it on assumption that he will be king in his father’s place.

He resumes searching for Amalthea, and the person that will be Athena begins to form clearer.  

The next time one of Cronus’ creatures draws near, Zeus hears advice in her voice.   _Smear yourself with cow dung.  It won’t want to come near._

He imagines her reminding him:  _Walk through streams wherever you can_.   _It will cover your tracks and your scent._

He imagines her when the rain pours unceasingly and he has no choice but to stop.  He’s stuck in a cave eating the cheese he stole from some humans and there’s nothing to do but huddle and wait, so he imagines the voice again, in conversation with him.

He begins speaking at length, mostly in whispers under his breath.  They’re little more than daydreams at first.  He imagines himself walking beneath the open sky, talking with his companion about whatever is on his mind.  He imagines her replies.  He  _replies_  to those replies, and in this manner he continues talking until he falls asleep eventually, alone in his cave.

The figure in his head begins to take on oddities of personality – she naturally takes an interest in the things of concern to him, which a typical woman might not be: she converses with him about the eventual battle that will take place against the Titans; she sketches out designs for armor and weapons; she muses over potential alliances.  She speculates what his brothers and sisters must be like.

And yet, because the nymphs that Zeus has known have all been interested in weaving and pottery… so is this person that Zeus talks to.  She speaks sometimes of looms and kilns, things he associates with safety and warmth and the women who have cared for him before.  He imagines a girl working hard on a tapestry and compliments her on it.  He imagines the girl pleased by his praise.

And before long, Zeus is imagining that she is praising him when he does something well, and the praise encourages him.  These exchanges of mutual respect are what eventually inspire him to begin calling her by a name: Athena, spun off the word αινη – “Praise.”

Her voice is always uniformly calm, always practical, always wise beyond her years.  She sometimes seems cold in her calculations, but she reminds him that sometimes the calculations  _must_  be cold in order to survive.  And there is never a question that she is Zeus’ friend – always, always, she guides him.  She is always on his side, his only companion.

(It occurs to Zeus that he might be losing his mind – but, well, what of it?  He had certainly been going mad before from the fear and loneliness, and this is preferable.  He lives by her wisdom; he is not alone anymore.  He begins to think of her only in terms of a real person)

Eventually, he finds the ancient and benevolent she-goat, Amalthea, and shelters beneath her, still wearing his sheepskin.  Her presence masks his, and for a time, some of the constant strain of survival recedes at last.

And yet, he has grown too used to his imaginary companion.  The mental conversations continue over time as he grows – a bit taller, a bit stronger, a bit more confident in himself as he takes her advice and succeeds.  He is able to slip into dangerous territory for brief raids, to speak to other nymphs or Titans who are unconvinced that Cronus’ rule will last long – but not yet convinced that this gangly teenage god is going to depose him.  

He consults with Athena for a long time one night as they plan how to retrieve his siblings from Cronus. In spite of the warlike abilities he has attributed to her, she surprises him by suggesting a more guileful plan of action.

 _Cronus is already old, and powerful, while you aren’t yet much more than a child_ , her voice points out matter-of-factly.   _You could not defeat him in battle without assistance.  And if you can retrieve your brothers and sisters, proving that you can outsmart him and gain strength thereby, others of the Old Gods may be more inclined to ally with you_.

It is Athena’s idea to ask Metis, the Oceanid, to drug Cronus.  As Zeus has come to anticipate, the plan goes flawlessly – Cronus consumes the drug and vomits forth all five of his siblings.  They’re hacked up unceremoniously, and fall, dazed and covered in slime, onto the dirt, shrinking from the air and sunlight.

Zeus rushes out to aid them while Cronus is still wracked with spasms, incapacitated by nausea.  He hurriedly assists them into carts pulled by attendants of Amalthea, and they flee before Cronus can recover.

This… is where Athena nearly disappears.  

Because now, Zeus’ companions are real.  He hardly knows what to do.  He’s so delighted to see them, so perplexed by their reality – in turns awed and skittish at the same time.  He talks to them, and they reply back.  He can  _touch_  them.  An imaginary voice in his head, no matter how loyal, no matter how beloved, cannot compare to a brother’s hand on his shoulder, a sister’s grateful kiss on the cheek.  

But Athena is saved from extinction by the fact that they do not measure up to his standards, immediately. There is no question that he loves them already, unconditionally, almost bordering on desperation.  But he is unaccustomed to being surrounded by others, and finds it hard to accept their interjections into his own life.

They disagree and even argue with him sometimes, for one thing, which is bewildering.  Athena never argued with him.  She pointed out things he may have missed, but her loyalty was always to him, because she  _was_  him. His sisters resist some of his physical touches – politely, but firmly, which he tries to accept but he’s wanted a female companion for  _so long_.  Part of him can see why these things are happening, but he struggles.  His survival and strength is greater than ever with them here, but… Zeus is unaccustomed to differing points of view, different loyalties, different wants.

Further complicating things is the fact that Zeus can see their wisdom doesn’t compare to Athena’s. This is incontestable – they acknowledge it – and understandable.  They were swallowed the moment they were born.  They know nothing of the world.  They’ve only existed in Cronus’ stomach – little to learn there.  It’s a sobering moment when he realizes how much responsibility is still on his shoulders – that even though he will be relying on them during the inevitable Titanomachy, he still needs to protect them. Which means, he still needs Athena.

He knows even without consulting her voice, that it isn’t wise to tell the others about her.  He’s the one who rescued them; he’s the one who is planning the battle.  Whether or not he feels ready for the role, he’s become their leader, and it’s not going to inspire confidence for his brothers and sisters to learn that their savior and leader had to create an imaginary friend to talk to while he huddled in caves, cringing in terror from the creatures they will be battling.

So the conversations stop, but he still listens to the whisper of her voice in his head.  Athena doesn’t disappear.

On her advice, he frees the Cyclopes from Tartarus and earns their loyalty.  She is with him when they give him the gift of lightning – which helps him to finally win over the aid of Prometheus and Themis.  Their assistance (Prometheus in particular becomes close to Zeus) drives her even further back – and yet, she is with him every minute of the ten-year war, and the terrible final battle.

When it’s all done, Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades all draw lots to divide the rule of the universe, and that seems to be the end of Zeus’ need for Athena.  He’s a man now, with his brothers and sisters beside him, and Cronus is defeated.  He is king, as she told him he would be.  He has a wife, he has children.  He has no need of an imaginary girl to keep him company.

But by now, it is too late. The imaginary friend of a god is something quite different from that of a mortal – particularly if this imaginary friend has been so strongly loved and respected for so many long years.

Athena has been conceived. She is created, she is real.  She continues to grow, inside Zeus’ head, becoming realer and realer until the day she must exit his skull, and she does, to the utter incomprehension of all – except Zeus, who recognizes her instantly.

He says nothing of who she really is, and allows the misconception to form that she is his daughter, somehow.  He favors her above all his other children, but can’t explain why, no matter how their resentment simmers and seethes.  Nor can she. No one must know the terrified child Zeus once was.

That is the story of Athena’s birth.  She is a collection of thoughts; an imaginary being brought to existence by the will of the god who imagined her.  She is wise and fearsome because that is what Zeus needed her to be.  

She is the only creature of her species to exist – until the day she isn’t.

————

Hephaestus is a mystery for all of them at first.  One day, Hera was roundly gravid, and pleased with herself; the next, she is no longer pregnant but there is no child and Hera spends weeks locked in her room, weeping and speaking to no one.

Everyone assumes, at first, that the child did not survive.  They do not speak of it – but eventually, as they so often do, the whispers begin to swirl.

Hera’s sisters know. Hestia is a locked vault; she knows the secrets of everyone in Olympus because everyone comes to her to talk; but they all come to her because they know she can be trusted to keep her silence.

Demeter, though… Demeter is a wild and free spirit, for whom the concept of discretion is alien.  From her, Athena learns what she probably could have deduced herself: Hera has sent her son to live with the Nereids Thetis and Eurynome, in a grotto of the palace of her own foster parents, Oceanus and Thetys.

The boy, Hephaestus, does not leave the grotto.  Athena does not have occasion to investigate this grotto, and presumes she would not be welcome there.  His isolation is doubtless for his own protection, as the only two consistent rumors about him are that 1) he is ugly and deformed beyond anything ever seen before in a god; and 2) because of this, Hera rejected him and threw him from Olympus.

Athena takes what she knows: Hephaestus was conceived in much the way she was.  This is an ‘open secret;’ Hera was quite transparent about her rage and hurt, after Zeus apparently rejected her as a wife, and the mother of his children, in favor of having his own child entirely solo. Neither Zeus nor Athena can correct this.

But where Athena is flawless and brilliant, Hephaestus is disfigured and his life touched with constant bitterness.  Athena was born of a genuine love and need, and was developed over years and years. Hephaestus was born in an act of retribution, and was prenatal for only a few months.

Hera is no more flawed than her husband; she is no less of a goddess.  The difference, then, was that Athena was Zeus’ beloved imaginary friend for so long, whereas Hephaestus… was not.  Hera didn’t know the rules of imaginary friends.  How could she?  Even Athena only realized why she turned out the way she did, after seeing how Hephaestus turned out.  

Athena doubts Hera rejected Hephaestus.  She suspects that Hera feared for him.  Olympus is a cruel place sometimes; no place for the weak.  And perhaps she feared that Zeus might kill her failed attempt at solo childbearing.  Hephaestus only exists because Hera believed Zeus must have hated her, hated their child.

Eventually, Hephaestus sends a rigged throne as a gift for Hera, trapping her in place.  Her pain is visible; she cannot move, cannot breath; the fine, invisible chains cut at her.  In this manner everyone in Olympus is in on the secret: Hephaestus lives, and he hates Hera above all else in this world.

Hera’s heartbreak is visible for the world to see; no one wants to meet her eyes, even as they struggle to free her.  Even those who have cause to hate her – Apollo and Artemis; Aphrodite; Dionysus… her pain is awful enough that they set all animosity aside and try to get Hephaestus to undo his cursed gift.

After all threats and diplomacy and shouting have finished, after Hera is freed, after Hephaestus is invited to stay on Olympus – everyone assumes that Hera will be cold towards such a cruel son, especially one that she rejected in the first place.  But she is almost desperate to make amends with him, though she restrains herself from showing it too strongly.  She commissions him to make far more jewelry than she normally wears.  She insists on making him a member of the Council of Twelve.  Hera feels responsible for all the misery in his life, since it was her weakness that caused him to take the form he did.

Athena knows differently.

Zeus knows, too.  His wife’s agony tears him apart – both during her agony in the throne, and her shame afterwards.  He is much tenderer to Hera for a long while after that.  But he doesn’t say why, and neither does Athena.

———-

Her existence negatively affects one final person: Ares, the god of war and courage.

Ares, once a reasonably polite and friendly young man, is now angry and rude almost constantly.  The newer Olympians don’t remember him any other way.  He hates Athena.  The feeling is not quite mutual, though the differences lie mostly in semantics. Athena does not hate him with the same passion he hates her.  She is exasperated by him, constantly – as the oldest legitimate son of Zeus, he should be far more responsible, far more cautious, far more of a leader.  At first, she attempts to guide him as she guided Zeus, but Ares responds to her wisdom with a furious hatred.  Over time, his insolence and rudeness wear at her, and turn exasperation into dislike.  She knows Zeus feels the same way – they often feel the same way about things.  

But she knows as well that Zeus has an edge to his dislike.  In Ares, he sees a weak young man, too much like how Zeus himself could have been.  But whereas Zeus himself listened to wisdom and forced himself to grow up, to make sacrifices, Ares defiantly ignores anyone’s advice, often resulting in his own harm and making himself look like a fool.  In addition to that, there is always the hidden threat that he may follow the pattern of sons killing their fathers.  He certainly has motive enough, though Athena can certainly see he lacks the skill or, more importantly, the ambition.

Ares knows none of this. He knows only that he has already lost his father’s love, and has been replaced by any of a half dozen others who have come after him, most particularly Athena.  He assumes everyone hates him because he isn’t as talented as Hephaestus, as charming as Apollo, as funny as Hermes… and he isn’t as  _perfect in every way_  as Athena.

He becomes lost in his own anger.  He starts inadvisable fights; disappears for weeks at a time to go off somewhere, unsupervised and unauthorized.  He stands, sullen and defiant, when Zeus yells at him.  

It’s almost comical: Zeus wants Ares to be more like Athena.  Ares is doing everything possible to be as different from Athena as he can, and yet, he’s so much like his father.  

The main thing that sets Athena apart from Zeus, Ares, or any other god, is that she is perpetually calm and collected, sometimes at the expense of ever expressing emotion. People sometimes express pity over this, but honestly, after she watches Zeus/Ares, or Zeus/Hera or Ares/Hephaestus etc etc etc go at it, fighting and bellowing, Athena’s so fucking happy to have an emotional handicap.

———–

Athena wishes, often, that she could tell Ares that even if he  _wasn’t_ an oaf, a ruffian and a dullard, it wouldn’t matter.  Ares is an actual child of Zeus; currently his only legitimate son.   And Ares was always his own individual being from the start, and one who grew to be his own self, with interests apart from Zeus.  Ares is going in his own direction, even if it’s not where Zeus wants him to go.  Athena, conversely, is the culmination of what Zeus admires.  She was created that way.  She was his first companion and a part of him.  Comparing Ares to Athena is pointless in every sense.

She wishes she could tell Hera that Hephaestus wasn’t a reflection of her failure and a sign of her rejection by Zeus.  She wishes she could let Hera know that Zeus understands exactly why Hephaestus turned out the way he did, and he sees his birth not as a sign of Hera’s weakness but as a sign of how sorrowful she must have been, and that he really does accept the boy, and Hera herself.

She wishes she could tell Hephaestus that he is just like her but better, because he was born unlucky but managed to create ways around every disability.  And that even though he was born of bitterness and sorrow, he has managed to retain a core of kindness and sympathy unmatched by any other god except perhaps Hestia.  That Athena may be a living symbol of the need for a cool head, but Hephaestus is a living symbol of the need for love and acceptance.  She wishes she could tell him that even though the two of them bear no relation at all, as these things are commonly drawn, she nonetheless considers him her closest relative of them all, even over Zeus, because she and Hephaestus do have a shared parent of sorts: it was loneliness that created them.

But she says nothing. Zeus is the king of all the heavens, the ruler of gods and men.  His rule cannot be undermined.  Athena came into existence with that prerogative instilled in her: Zeus must survive, and he must be king.  He is Zeus the almighty.  

No one can know that Zeus was so afraid and so lonely that he created an imaginary friend to guide him through his trials.  They can’t know that his mood swings are the result of him constantly craving contact and yet trusting no one.  They can’t know that’s why she’s his favorite; they can’t know that’s why she’ll always be first in his heart.  Telling the truth of how she was born might do something to appease the sorrows of Ares, of Hera, of Hephaestus – but they cannot know.  

In many ways, it is as though she is still trapped in Zeus’ skull.

———————-

And so it is that at the marriage of Hephaestus and Aphrodite, which is certainly doomed before it even starts; which can only intensify the unhappiness of everyone present, with repercussions that may last for centuries; unhappiness which all –  _all_  – can be traced back indirectly to a frightened child hiding in a cave…..

….. when Zeus makes his appearance at the wedding, Athena kneels before him, bowing her head.

“Zeus.  My father; my king,” she says.  And nothing more.

——————

 


End file.
